How to Make Your Own Internet Meme

Every now and then, some pointless phrase or webpage will infect an innocent web surfer and start to replicate across the net, jumping from one mailbox to another and mutating in the process. Based on Susan Blackmore’s theory of memetics, these have been dubbed Internet memes. New ones spring up every day and most die a fast, well-deserved death soon afterwards, but a rare few still elicit groans even years after their birth…

The real kudos is in starting your own meme…

1) Use photoshop to make a fake event look real

Now post it to as many people as you can saying it’s true and you got it from somewhere else, you didn’t create it yourself, honest.

Examples of this are the see-thru skirts from Japan. Apparently there are these skirts all the Japanese girls are wearing that are spray-painted at the back to look like your pants are showing through. But no japanese stores have admitted selling them, it’s a bit weird how all the ‘fake bottoms’ match the angle of the photographer’s point of view… and best of all you can see the signs of photoshopping on the pics, too.

2) Create a meme so weird and great everyone wants some

The dancing baby was a very early example of this. Weird/great memes tend to become annoying pretty fast.

3) Start a chain letter

It doesn’t matter what’s in the chain letter. It could be nice or nasty, funny or crap. What matters is that at the bottom of the chain letter you say the receiver has to pass the letter on to get a wish / avoid have their home ripped up in a freak tornado of death.

For good measure, add a message to say that the more people the chain letter is passed on to, the more your wish comes true (which is weird. After all, a wish either comes true or it doesn’t, right?). You can also say that the fewer people the letter is passed on to, the more the tornado will really mess you up.

4) Come up with something that almost no-one understands

Here are two examples so you get the idea:

“AYBABTU”
(“All Your Base Are Belong To Us”, a funny but awful bit of English translation from a very old Japanese computer game – now found everywhere from T-shirts to the bridge as you come into Brighton on the train).

“GOURANGA”
(a buddhist phrase meaning “be happy”. There is a mighty fine chance this is a profesh viral marketing campaign for Grand Theft Auto. But it could also be some tek-savvy buddhists spreading the lurve…)

Now post this phrase all over the internet. Anyone who gets it will realise they’re part of a really small group who gets it, and will feel hot about themselves. Anyone who doesn’t get it will want to get it. Eventually, we guess, the group of people who gets it will grow to include everyone – so it can’t really be called a cult anymore. But people will still think it is! Hooray!

5) Everyone loves talking about themselves – and being nosy

If you want to create a meme, you can’t go wrong with a questionnaire. You know, “Thunder – cool or scary?”, “What’s your favourite smell?” “When’s the last time you yelled at someone?” … That kind of thing seems to work well. You spend far too long filling in your answers really carefully, and send it to everyone you know. And they’ll be so stoked because they always thought your favourite smell was dried ancient poo, but it turns out it’s fresh bread and newly-washed kittens, huzzah!

6) Make fun of genders in some way

This is easy to do. Just come up with something about the size of their brains, the size of their shoes etc. Then send it round. There is a high probability that everyone you will be frustrated enough to pass it on to someone else. Obviously we don’t really think you should do this. There’s enough hate and wilful ignorance in the world already. Unfortunately, as memes go, it does tend to work.

The Mookymeme

If you thought this article was useful you may want to pass it on. Because, of course, if you send it to ten million people, you get a wish…